Thoughts on Property Taxes from the President of the Eastern Idaho Apartment Association

At the EIAA meeting last week we learned two important things. First, we learned the process on how to challenge a property’s valuation. Second, we learned the key to reducing overall property taxes. I want to focus on the later.

I was totally surprised to find out how our property taxes are calculated. It is totally backwards from how individuals or companies manage their money.

1) The government body (city, county, etc…) creates a budget.
2) The Assessor calculates the total value of the real estate in the geographical area covered by the government body.
3) The budget is divided by the total value. This created the Levy amount.

If the overall value of housing goes down in the area, the levy amount actually goes up! So, it doesn’t matter if housing values go down significantly, your taxes will remain the same or even go up!!!

The key to getting the overall tax rate to go down is to lower the government body’s budget. In the past Blake Mueller said that hardly anyone shows up to challenge the budgets. We need to go to these meetings to make our voices heard. I have info on a few of the upcoming meetings:

City of Idaho Falls
July 21st, 28th and Aug 4th. All are at 8:30 AM, upstairs in the Municipal services building of City Hall.

Bonneville County
September 8th upstairs in the Centennial Court room at the old County Court house.

If you have information on when and where other meetings are going to be held, please contact me so I can send it out to the EIAA members.  As citizens and property owners, we need to go to these meeting and make our voices heard.

Bart Weaver, President
Eastern Idaho Apartment Association (EIAA)
http://www.eiaa.info/
(208) 535-8888

The next meeting of the EIAA will be held on April 14th and the guest speaker with be Idaho Falls Mayor Jared Fuhriman.  Location TBA.   For questions about the EIAA, contact Bart Weaver.